Red-Headed Menace
by Kat-Knife
Summary: Tom hated them immediately, the two cheeky little brats, especially the red-headed girl with the emerald eyes. Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 10.


THUD

THUD

He cracked open a livid azure eye and scowled at the ceiling.

"Can you stop that infernal noise! I'm trying to sleep!" he yelled, his normally handsome face contorting to look especially gruesome in the waning moonlight that crept into the room from the half open window.

The noise abruptly ceased and his brow smoothed into a peaceful expression. His eyes closed, his mind drifting back into the world of half-thoughts and he surrendered to the cool embrace of sleep.

THUD

THUD

Tom bolted up from bed and snarled in agitated frustration, jolted from his peaceful sleep, his normally polite and cool composure slipping away to reveal the man underneath. Currently that man looked like something that had crawled up from the deepest depths of hell. His eyes were slitted in anger, the sapphire eyes rimmed with scarlet red from exhaustion, dark blue bags underneath his orbits, looking almost like bruises; his usually coiffed hair was rumpled in an utter state of despair; his nightshirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing a smooth expanse of exposed skin.

Tom stumbled out of bed, kicking away his covers in anger before becoming even more tangled in the mess of bed sheets and falling to the floor. He gritted his teeth in pain as he bashed his head on the uneven edge of his makeshift desk.

He lay on the floor for a moment before gathering his resolve once again. He slowly sat up and released his hands from the cocoon of bed sheets before reaching up to rub his sore skull. His hands immediately found the throbbing origin of the pain and with skillful fingers, he massaged the pain away, sending out an iota of magic to ease it along. Tom was unsure that his aptitude in wandless and wordless magic had improved enough to heal minor injuries, but he supposed that there was no harm in trying. He carefully untangled the bed sheets from around his legs and then stood up, balancing himself against the desk as a wave of nausea overcame him. He forced out breaths from his nose, exhaling and inhaling in rhythm, trying to quell the severe urge to vomit. Slowly the nausea faded away, unfortunately, the thumping above his room did not.

His anger coursed through his veins again, humming faintly with untapped aggression, ready to be released with a vengeance on the brats that were preventing him from sleeping. He pushed away from the wall and purposefully knelt beside his creaky desk. He loosened the screws at the bottom of the wood paneling just underneath the desk and opened it to reveal the treasure that was discreetly hidden at the bottom, a flashlight.

If he had his wand he would have been able to just mutter the spell _lumos _and bright white light would have welcomed him with open arms. Unfortunately, his wand was currently under the mindful _care _of Professor Dumbledore, while Tom was away from school during the summer holidays, locked away in the damnable orphanage with a multitude of snotty nosed brats with sticky hands and gullible smiles, so he had to do with a muggle flashlight for now.

With the flashlight in hand, he stalked out of his room, his long legs allowing him to rapidly ascend the stairway. On his way to his destination he passed battered doors, adorned with chipped and peeling paint that had been clumsily covered up with amateur renditions of stick figures with incorrectly proportioned heads.

His feet slowed down and then finally halted in front of another unmarked door, indistinguishable from the rest except for the fact that it was directly located above his room.

Without further ado, he gripped the doorknob and threw open the door, startling the children that were gleefully jumping on the bed on the other side of the door.

"Hey!" One child yelled out in displeasure as the other one tumbled off the bed in an ungraceful heap of limbs and long brown hair.

The child that had yelled at him was the one that was still firmly anchored to the bed. She stood on the bed, her stance firm (for a scrawny child), her hands resting on her hips, a young girl of six or seven years with scarlet red hair and emerald green eyes. Eyes that were currently glaring at him balefully.

"What'd you do that for?" she asked him, looking unruffled by his abrupt entrance.

"I would be very pleased if you and your scrawny companion ceased the vexing noise that you are currently emitting." he said between clenched teeth, his hand clamped on the doorknob.

"Huh?" the girl said in puzzlement, her mouth falling open and her head tilting to one side, her puny brain futilely trying to process the words that he had so poetically spoken.

"Stop jumping on the bed." he stated dryly.

"Why?" the cheeky little brat asked, raising her chin in defiance at him.

"Because if you don't, I will make sure that you don't live to see tomorrow." he answered immediately, his face donning a mask of utmost politeness, a chilling smile settling on his lips.

The girl frowned at his threat, looking unconvinced.

"Do you want to jump on the bed with us?" she asked him winningly, smiling a bright sunny smile up at him, her mouth a mess of gums and crooked teeth.

His mind stuttered a bit at this concession, the sixty hours that he had gone without sleep finally catching up to him.

"I-NO I don't want to jump on the bed with you!" he yelled in frustration.

Her companion, who had yet to emerge from the other side of the bed, whimpered in fear.

"Why not?" she asked him, undeterred by his increase in volume.

"Because I would like to sleep for an uninterrupted seven hours, without being constantly woken up by your infernal thumping." he supplied, the words spilling out of his mouth in an uncontrolled babble, quite uncharacteristic of him, but he was sleep deprived or at least that was what his excuse was.

"Oh," she finally said, looking a little dejected that he had rejected her offer.

"What will we get if we stop jumping?" she asked him, her eyes brightening again as she looked up at him in question.

"Nothing!" He said, a little impressed despite himself that this sprite of a girl had the audacity to ask him what he would give her in exchange for her silence. She would have made a good Slytherin if she hadn't reeked of muggle.

"The next time you play with your snake, can I pet it?" she asked him.

He was thrown off yet again by the non-sequitur. He was amazed by the fact that she had, first of all, noticed the fact that he had an affinity for snakes and second of all, was brave enough to want to touch it. All the other girls in the orphanage would have run away screaming at the top of their lungs if they had even _thought_ that there was a snake in their midst. He would know, he had unleashed a snake upon them when he was eight. The screams had been glorious if a little perplexing.

"No," he finally said.

"I'll stop jumping on the bed and let you sleep." she wheedled.

Against his better judgement, the prospect of uninterrupted sleep appealed to him and he agreed reluctantly, "Fine."

"Great!" she squealed, jumping on the bed a few times before looking up at him and mouthing the words sorry.

Tom shut the door behind him and retreated to the sanctuary of his room, which was peaceful once again. He rested his head on his pillow and tiredly pulled the mess of bed sheets on top of him, the world falling away around him.

* * *

He let her pet the garden snake the next day. He wasn't quite sure why, he'd had no intention of doing so, but somehow it had happened. She had cooed in awe and showered the small snake with verbal praise and gentle pats to the head. The garden snake had reveled in the attention and had been quite taken with the red-headed human. For the course of the week, she would come up to him everyday just after lunchtime and beg to see the snake. He would reluctantly show her the snake and sit back in puzzlement as she adored the snake. When he woke up on Saturday, she was gone; she had been adopted by a muggle family.

Looking at the smiling picture of Lily Evans with her husband James and their infant Harry, he thought back to the girl. He should have killed her while he had the chance; if he had she wouldn't have spawned the woman who had given birth to the boy that was destined to kill him. His biggest mistake was staring at him in the face. Oh, the price of kindness.


End file.
